Science-Based Nutrition and Activity Coaching for Virtually All Americans
In the United States we have two apparently contradictory nutrition problems, obesity and under-nutrition. The Alive! program addresses both healthy eating and physical activity, with proven effectiveness. With enhancements for weight management, Alive! can bring behaviorally effective coaching for health to all Americans through email, mail and phone.
About You
Section 1: About You
First Name
Gladys
Last Name
Block
Organization
NutritionQuest (formerly known as Block Dietary Data Systems)
Country
United States
Section 2: About Your Organization
Organization Name
NutritionQuest (formerly known as Block Dietary Data Systems)
Organization Website
Organization Phone
510-704-8514
Organization Address
15 Shattuck Square, Suite 288, Berkeley, CA 94704
Is your organization a
For‐profit
Organization Country
United States
Your idea
Name Your Project
Science-Based Nutrition and Activity Coaching for Virtually All Americans
Country your work focuses on
United States
Describe Your Idea
In the United States we have two apparently contradictory nutrition problems, obesity and under-nutrition. The Alive! program addresses both healthy eating and physical activity, with proven effectiveness. With enhancements for weight management, Alive! can bring behaviorally effective coaching for health to all Americans through email, mail and phone.
Website URL
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
What if you could provide effective behavioral coaching to millions of Americans for $5 each or less? Traditional interventions that have been proven effective in improving nutrition and weight control have required intensive interactions, beyond the reach of most organizations or businesses because of cost. They are also inconvenient, resulting in poor attendance and compliance. Alive! is unique in comparison with such intensive programs because 1) It is extremely low cost; 2) it is convenient for participants, because it comes through their email inbox. It is unique among internet applications in that 1) it has been proven effective in a randomized trial, 2) it is tailored to each individual’s dietary habits and preferences, and 3) it is multi-modal, as current enhancements include automated individually tailored telephone and print messages. It also has preliminary evidence of an effect on weight loss in the obese. Alive! comes to each individual’s email inbox, beginning with a scientific assessment of the individual’s current diet and physical activity behaviors, with instant feedback that stimulates motivation. Based on the individual’s current food and activity habits and preferences, Alive provides a choice of small-step weekly goals over 3 to 12 months, based on behavioral principles including individual relevance and goal-setting. Alive! now provides effective coaching on improved diet and physical activity. With an additional focus on weight control, and promotion to businesses and communities, Alive! could make a huge difference in the lives of millions of Americans.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
No
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
We have proven the effectiveness of the Alive! program in improving dietary and physical activity habits, in a large randomized trial. The scientific articles describing the results have attracted widespread interest, including an article by Sanjay Gupta in Time Magazine. In addition to significant effects of the program on increasing physical activity and improving fruits/vegetables and fats, we have proven that Alive had a significant beneficial effect on perceived quality of life and “presenteeism”. As a result, we are in contractual discussions with some Kaiser organizations to offer Alive! to their member companies. In addition, two food service organizations serving college staff and students are using Alive!, and it is being offered to the University of California at Berkeley. In the diet and activity assessment part of our business, we have made it possible for literally hundreds of academic and governmental research groups to investigate the role of diet and activity in health. Thus, our impact has been on demonstrating, with scientific validity, that an inexpensive approach can in fact improve diet and physical activity. And in providing scientifically valid tools for further nutrition research.
Problem
Our Our project addresses the apparently contradictory problems of obesity and under-nutrition in the United States. While true hunger and extreme malnutrition are far less frequent in the U.S. than in the developing world (although they do exist in the U.S.), the obesity and poor nutrition in the U.S. affect two-thirds of the U.S. population, contribute to the dramatic rise in diabetes, and contribute to our burgeoning health care costs. The poor food choices of Americans result in widespread inadequacy in antioxidant vitamins, calcium, fiber, and many other nutrients, with accompanying disease risk. Lack of physical activity, along with poor food choices, are the causes of obesity. The Alive! program could address both of these problems. With improvements in the weight loss component of the intervention, Alive! could readily provide a widely available, affordable intervention program for use by communities, organizations and businesses and individuals.
Actions
We have conducted a randomized trial, essential to showing that Alive! is evidence-based. We have published results in leading peer reviewed journals. We have sought and received an NIH grant to improve it. We have submitted Alive! for listing on the National Cancer Institute’s Research-Tested Intervention Programs website. We applied for and were accepted in the NIH supported Commercialization Assistance Program. We have hired a consultant to conduct sales outreach and follow up on inquiries. These efforts have resulted in the following, among others. A major television presence has expressed interest in Alive!, reviewed materials, and scheduled a conference call for next week. Several regions of Kaiser Permanente are considering it. The Ministry of Health of Ontario, Canada, plans to make Alive! available on its website, as part of diabetes prevention. Health groups in Australia and New Zealand have inquired. Discussions with several other organizations are under way.
Results
We are in final contracting stages with Kaiser Permanente of Colorado, which will offer Alive! to its member companies. We expect use by some other Kaiser Permanente regions for employees and member companies. Three college campuses are offering it to staff and students, and we're negotiating with others. We expect that health organizations and even hospitals will begin to offer Alive! as part of their services.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
2010: We need to complete the NIH-funded enhancements and conduct a successful randomized trial on six campuses of the University of California. We need funding for adapting Alive! to have an additional focus on weight loss or maintenance, and to maximize its impact using the recent neuropsychological breakthroughs in understanding the neurophysiology of overeating. This would be greatly facilitated by additional staff including software engineers. In addition, to be successful we need to hire a full-time sales and promotion staff person, to place advertisements and targeted stories in relevant journals, and actively seek sales, and/or to partner with established companies with marketing expertise. We need to enhance our programming and server capacities, in anticipation of greatly increased use of the Alive! program. A revised version of the program, with updated and expanded content, look and feel, and additional communication modes will help to move this from a science project to a sustainable behavior change business.
2011-2012: Continued and expanded promotion and sales
What would prevent your project from being a success?
Failure to execute with regard to marketing and sales. We have a working program that meets the needs of the consumer, has been proven to be effective, and is unique. We just need to sell it. Inadequate staffing for management, for technical improvements, and for promotion/sales would prevent the project from being a success. As a very small company, with a product based on the work of nutritional and behavioral scientists, we face a major risk of being unable to effectively market this proven system widely.
How many people will your project serve annually?
More than 10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
Don't know
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Yes
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for 1‐5 years
In what country?
United States
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Yes
If yes, provide organization name.
NutritionQuest
How long has this organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
No
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
No
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
No
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
Yes
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
We are working with Canadian health authorities to develop a nationwide dietary assessment tool. We have had similar relationships with groups in the U.S. government and elsewhere.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
Develop enhanced delivery capacity and weight loss components
Greatly increase promotion/marketing/sales
Government or philanthropic support to make near-universal delivery very low-cost.
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
I (Dr. Gladys Block) have been involved in research about Americans’ dietary habits, and efforts to improve them, since the early 1980s. I have been a scientific leader in proving the profound impact of nutrition on prevention of chronic disease while at the National Cancer Institute and then on the Berkeley faculty. My findings and writings stimulated the National Cancer Institute to establish its “5-a-Day” national campaign to increase fruit and vegetable consumption, and have generated many similar wellness “social marketing” efforts. However, I became deeply frustrated by the ineffectiveness of those efforts in changing the nation’s critical health and wellness behaviors.
I realized that today’s information technologies could perhaps provide a missing ingredient -- ongoing support to change one’s diet and physical activity that is individualized but nevertheless delivered widely and inexpensively, through email and the Internet. To do so would require combining scientific expertise in nutrition and physical activity with expertise in behavior change. Along with such expertise from NutritionQuest, we have collaborated with physical activity experts at Kaiser Permanente Division of Research and Stanford Medical School, and health behavior change experts from Brown University and the University of North Carolina. The result is the Alive! program, which has now demonstrated its effectiveness, its low cost, and its ability to scale up quickly.
Many or most Americans know they should be eating better and becoming more active. But they need support in changing lifelong habits and in learning an array of healthier behaviors well enough to sustain them after the intervention. Alive! does that, through suggesting small steps in the right direction, recognizing barriers that will come up and how to overcome them, fitting recommendations into each individual’s practical life constraints, and suggesting vehicles for family, social and community support.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
G Gladys Block and Clifford Block are the two primary social innovators of this innovation. I, Gladys Block, am Professor Emerita at the University of California at Berkeley. I was a pioneer in demonstrating the health impact of fruit and vegetable intake, through research begun when I was an epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute. The national 5-A-Day social marketing program resulted from my research and advice. I have also been instrumental in developing dietary and physical activity assessment tools and their electronic delivery and analysis, and my instruments are used by hundreds of academic and government research groups. My husband, Clifford Block, is also a primary social innovator behind this idea. He is a behavioral psychologist (PhD, Yale) with long experience in initiating and promoting national-scale health behavior change campaigns in developing countries, while at the U.S. foreign aid agency, USAID. In particular, he promoted and championed the use of technology for promoting health behavior change in developing countries. Thus, we combined the nutritional knowledge and tools with the behavior change expertise and emphasis on technological approaches to achieve low-cost but effective interventions. Dr. Barbara Sternfeld, a collaborator at Kaiser Permanente, was also important in the implementation, especially of the physical activity aspects.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Email from Changemakers
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
 | 130 weeks agoGladys Block updated this Competition Entry. |
| 130 weeks agoGladys Block submitted this idea. |
